Key Findings:

1. Taiwan regained the top rank in the Asia-Pacific Sustainability Rankings, and Singapore fell to fifth place due to unusually poor performance
2. Analysis of "Carbon Disclosure" in the Asia-Pacific region: Taiwan does not move forward but backwards, and in terms of its "Carbon Neutral" actions its ranked dead last
3. Not just a climate slogan! 65% of Asia-Pacific companies have publicly disclosed their net-zero goals

According to the United Nations "World Population Prospects" report, the global population officially exceeded 8 billion in November 2022, and is expected to reach 8.5 billion in 2030. This is an "important milestone" in the history of human development, but it is also prompting governments of many countries to accelerate discussions on crises such as "climate disaster losses", "insufficient food reserves", and "imbalance between energy supply and demand".

CSRone, Taiwan's leading brand in sustainability, and the Sinyi School of NCCU College of Commerce have published the all-important "Taiwan and Asia Pacific Sustainability Analysis Report", a white paper level report, every March for ten consecutive years. This year, our research team conducted in-depth analysis and matched corporate sustainability actions across 10 countries and found Taiwan’s sustainability performance was ranked in the top 3 for three consecutive years, regaining this year the Asia Pacific region top ranking.

This corporate sustainability evaluation targets the sustainability information from the public websites of the top 10 companies located in 10 countries, including Taiwan, Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, and Australia. This report has been listed as the most important ESG reference data by many domestic and foreign sustainability organizations, and it will be formally released at the 9th International Conference on Trends of Sustainability 2023 on March 24, 2023.

Since 2018, the research team has screened the sustainability reports of the world's top 2,000 companies on the Forbes 2022 survey as well as domestic databases, and with reference to sustainability practices of professional institutions and Asian corporate sustainability practices, identified 3 key aspects: environmental, social, governance (ESG), and a total of 10 key sustainability themes (governance, energy conservation and carbon reduction, waste management, training and education, employee care, social investment, human rights, SDGs, water resources, biodiversity) as key analysis indicators. The evaluation of enterprises' sustainable investment level is based on the "S-thermometer Analysis" standard, with "mention" being degree 1, "action" being degree 2, "performance" being degree 3, "target" being degree 4, and "improvement" being degree 5. The higher the index, the more comprehensive the issue's management represents.

[Key Finding 1] Taiwan regained the top rank in the Asia-Pacific Sustainability Rankings, while Singapore performed unusually poorly and dropped to fifth place

From analyzing the results of this study, the top 5 countries out of the 10 Asia-Pacific countries in terms of sustainable temperature index in 2022 are: Taiwan (3.55), Malaysia (3.49), Thailand (3.43), South Korea (3.39), Singapore (3.38). While many countries have declined slightly in their evaluation results, Malaysia ranked first in terms of “corporate governance”, “social investment”, “education and training”, and “SDGs”, which is an increase of 0.19 compared to previous years. This pushed their ranking on the sustainable temperature index to the runner-up position. Remarkably, Singapore, which ranked first in the sustainable temperature index last year, fell to fifth place this year due to poor performance in aspects such as "waste management”,” SDGs” and "human rights".  Australia has also been on a yearly declining trend since 2020.

What is particularly noteworthy is that the research team included the two issues of "water resources" and "biodiversity" in the analysis process for the first time this year. Taiwan, which is an island country with rich biological resources, despite regaining the top spot in the Asia-Pacific region for sustainable information disclosure, also found that our country’s corporate organizations ranked last in the area of “biodiversity” information disclosure (2.00), revealing that the management and attention of biodiversity by Taiwanese business organizations still needs to be improved.

CSRone pointed out that with the increasing attention to sustainable issues, the issues of biodiversity and energy transition have also officially surfaced; it is recommended that enterprises plan ahead in response to the hotly discussed topic by the international community of (Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, TNFD) framework.

[Key Finding 2] Analysis of "Carbon Disclosure" in the Asia-Pacific region: Taiwan does not move forward but backward, and is in last place for "Carbon Neutrality" actions

The Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the "Climate Change Response Act" in January 2023, officially enshrining the 2050 net-zero emission target into law, and announced the launch of the carbon fee collection mechanism. In order to further understand the general responses of enterprises in the Asia-Pacific as to net-zero and emission reduction, the research team specifically adopted "Internal Carbon Pricing Information", "Carbon Trading Information", "Carbon Neutral Information" and "Carbon Rights Information" as the four carbon disclosure indexes to distinguish the Asia-Pacific enterprises in terms of their information responses and disclosures on carbon issues.

According to analysis and research, the attention of the top 10 companies in ten Asia-Pacific countries to "internal carbon pricing information", "carbon neutral information" and "carbon rights information" has been increasing year by year, with the growth rate exceeding 10%. If you focus on the top ten companies in Taiwan with regards to their four major carbon information disclosures, you will find that while business organizations in various countries actively communicate their carbon management actions to the outside world, Taiwan’s “internal carbon pricing information (60%)” and “carbon trading information (10%)” performance rankings reveal to have declined compared to the previous year.

CSRone stated that "carbon management" has become the top issue and dilemma for Taiwanese business organizations in recent years. In addition to the real implementation of carbon strategic actions, it is recommended that companies, through open and transparent information disclosure, create and push for a "climate wave" as a key cornerstone, as well as demonstrating their determination to transform to the market and its stakeholders.

[Key Finding 3] Not just a climate slogan! 65% of Asia-Pacific companies have publicly disclosed their net-zero goals

For the first time this year, the research team conducted an in-depth analysis of the current status of net-zero targets disclosed by companies in ten Asia-Pacific countries in their reports. During the data review period, a total of 66 companies (65.6%) had disclosed net-zero targets in their sustainability reports. It is worth mentioning that 100% of Malaysian companies disclosed their net zero goals, and Singapore is followed by second place; Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Australia tied for third place (80%); Hong Kong, India, and China disclosed less than 50%; while China only had 2 companies disclosure their net zero goals.

CSRone believes that as the United Nations and government agencies of various countries lock into the developing trend of "greenwashing" and formulate inspection regulations, the "climate commitments" announced by corporate organizations will be magnified and reviewed individually. It is recommended that enterprises closely follow the company vision (purpose), accurately set goals, implementation scope, and direction, as well as regularly reviewing its achievements and publicly disclosing the content of actual actions in order to meet the needs of increasingly diverse stakeholders.

[Attachment: Top ten companies in the ten Asian countries]

Note 1: India Oil & Natural Gas report was unavailable due to website failure. Therefore, in 2022, only 9 companies in India were analyzed.
Note 2: In 2022, only 7 companies in Malaysia were included in the Forbes 2,000 list.

 

[9th International Conference on Trends of Sustainability 2023]

• Forum Date and time: March 24, 2023 (Friday) 9:00 – 17:00 

• Forum Information: https://csrone.com/events/896

Data source：CSRone
Image Source：CSRone、Jack Brind